CABOT, Ark. – Following the first round of action this spring for the Southern Arkansas Women's Golf team, three Muleriders are currently inside the leaderboard top 25 following Monday's play at the Natural State Golf Classic hosted by Harding University at the Cypress Creek Golf Club in Cabot which saw the team shoot 330 to position in seventh among the ten-team field entering Tuesday's final round.
Southern Arkansas finds itself just six strokes back of fifth place and ten strokes out of the top three. #20 Central Missouri leads at +25 with Harding and Southern Nazarene tied for second at +32.
Chelsea Chow (T16th), Emma Hester (T19th) and Aurea Carlisle (T24) are currently among the tournament's top half of performers. Chow finished her first round of spring at +8 on the par-72, 6,107-yard course. Hester shot an 81 and Carlisle posted an 83.
Aubrey Marx is just back of Carlisle and tied for 35th after shooting an 86 on Monday. Kelsey Saveall's first round 89 has her in 43rd outright.
Southern Arkansas was solid in par-3 scoring on the day as Marx led the approach at even, while Saveall, Carlisle and Hester all shot +2. Overall, SAU shot +8 in par-3 scoring on Monday. The effort over the course's four such holes is tied for the second-best among the ten-team tournament field. Chow led SAU in par-4 scoring at +4 and along with Carlisle and Hester each finished at +2 in par-5 efforts.
SAU's 37 pars on the day are tied for the fourth-most along the tournament field. Chow led with ten pars and Carlisle followed with nine. Chow bogeyed her first hole of the morning and then rattled off five straight pars to jumpstart her round. Carlisle enjoyed a stretch of seven consecutive pars in her round which started with one on the par-3 ninth and moved to the par-4 15th.
Hester capped her last hole of the day, the par-5 18th, with a birdie as did Marx who also birdied the par-3 9th. Saveall recorded five pars with three straight from holes 2 to 4.
As an individual, Taylor Rich finished at +18 in her first round of the season. She recorded four pars and two birdies.
The Muleriders return to action on Tuesday for the final 18 holes of play. Live scoring is available at https://results.golfstat.com/public/leaderboards/gsnav.cfm?pg=team&tid=25860.
